Question: How many cases of injustice are acceptable? This is a good question for the Associated Press, which apparently thinks it’s okay for boys claiming to be female to compete in girls’ sports — as long as they don’t take too many spots away from the lasses.
Of course, the AP doesn’t define “too many.”
The outlet also essentially states that we should wait until people suffer injustice before legislating against injustice.
“Legislators in more than 20 states have introduced bills this year that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams in public high schools,” write the AP’s David Crary and Lindsay Whitehurst. “Yet in almost every case, sponsors cannot cite a single instance in their own state or region where such participation has caused problems.”
“The Associated Press reached out to two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring such measures around the country as well as the conservative groups supporting them and found only a few times it’s been an issue among the hundreds of thousands of American teenagers who play high school sports,” the AP continues.
Note here the term “issue.” What qualifies as such? To journalists, perhaps, something is only an “issue” if it makes news, and a matter swept under the rug is out of sight, out of mind. But a man still oblivious to metastasizing cancer in his body surely has an “issue,” and, yes, a tree that falls in a forest unheard by human ears does make a sound (sound waves are emitted).
That is to say, if a boy who successfully passes for a girl takes a trophy from a female athlete, is it any more or less unjust than when a boy who doesn’t successfully pass for a girl does so?
Note here that as the AP concedes, this issue is much like illegal migration: We don’t have accurate numbers. We don’t actually know how many MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, or “transgender”) boys compete in girls’ school sports.
Nonetheless, the AP implicitly criticizes a lawmaker who admitted that while there may be no MUSS students competing in middle and high school sports in his state of Tennessee (unlikely), legislation prohibiting such was necessary to be “proactive.” The AP’s idea is that such laws are a cure in search of a disease.
In reality, they’re prophylaxes for looming problem.
To analogize this, if you wait until there’s sexual assault in your area to legislate against the trespass — because there hadn’t been sexual assault you were aware of in your locale previously — the victim’s trauma is on your head by way of your sin of omission.
In other words, while excess lawmaking should be avoided, if something is an injustice and lies within government’s legitimate domain, legislation is in order. And the matter here is government’s domain because at issue are government schools.
Continuing with the theme that the boys-in-girls-sports issue is exaggerated, the AP points out that some lawmakers cited the same particular story to make their opposing case: that of MUSS boy sprinters Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, who “combined to win 15 championship [girls’] races, prompting a lawsuit,” writes the news bureau.
Sexual devolutionaries claim that this is frequently cited because it’s the only example of its kind.
“It’s their Exhibit A, and there’s no Exhibit B — absolutely none,” the AP quotes Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a prominent sexual devolutionary attorney, as saying. This is essentially a falsehood.
Minter may mean that it’s the only example in which MUSS boys have been so dominant, but I reported on the case of a less dominant lad here. Moreover, males taking honors from females is even more common among adults, as this group contains far more MUSS individuals and, being grown, the males are more developed.
This said, unlike many conservatives, I never contended that having MUSS males compete with females would “destroy women’s sports.” For it’s probably an overstatement. It will just corrupt “women’s” sports.
After all, MUSS individuals constitute a tiny percentage of the population, only a small number of this group is interested in sports, and likely only a minority of this sub-group trains seriously in athletics. Add to this that many such boys (but not all) are taking puberty-blockers/female hormones, which diminishes their physical advantages, and it’s clear why there aren’t too many Millers or Yearwoods.
Thus does the AP essentially portray Miller and Yearwood as outliers, as it implies that mere anecdotes relating to injustice are meaningless. It then, however, itself uses a few anecdotes to make the case that banning MUSS boys from girls’ sports is an injustice. One is the story of an unnamed 12-year-old lad who is on a girls’ swim team and “cried” when he learned he could be separated from his friends. But is the message, then, that injustice is okay if it pleases a few people?
“But, wait,” say the sexual devolutionaries, “having ‘transgenders’ on girls’ teams is not unjust! You’re wrong!”
Thank you.
That’s the point. None of the above anecdotes or appeals matter. The real issue is: Is having MUSS boys in girls’ sports unjust or not? Unsurprisingly, this isn’t rationally addressed by the AP or any other sexual devolutionaries. They serve up only emotional appeals.
As to this, someone I know fairly well responded via Twitter (below) to the two AP authors’ point that a MUSS boy runner “only” finished third in a girls’ foot race in Alaska.
Likewise, is it alright to allow a 22-year-old to compete in under-13 soccer because he identifies as a 12-year-old? Is its rightness altered by his relative success? Is it okay for him to take an 11-year-old’s place on a team if the 22-year-old is the worst on the squad?
The point: Distinctions made based on age, weight, and sex are common because we believe they matter. If they don’t, we should eliminate them. If they do, we must abide by them.
For contrary to the silly justification “Rules are meant to be broken,” rules are actually meant to be followed. And if a standard is just, someone abiding by it who’s trumped by someone violating it has been done an injustice — regardless of whether the spot the victim lost is the first or last.
Thus, if the sexual distinction is irrelevant — a relic of a bigoted, bygone era — have the sexes compete together across the board and may the best “man” win. If the distinction really does matter, though, then the imperative of fairness dictates we abide by it — across the board.
So does it matter? Well, putting aside that sport is frivolity, note that in the 800-meter run, the record for 14-year-old boys is better than the women’s world record.
So you tell me.
